#Women's History Month is almost over! - But here's Amelia Robertson Hill

Hello again,

This is the last opportunity for me to highlight the spectacularly innovative women who have rarely gained much attention during their own time.

Amelia R. Hill CC Wikimedia Commons

I'm not writing a completely new post but I am going to mention the two women that is chose to send to my lovely friend Anna Belfrage's blog for her month-long feature for #Women's History Month 2025.

I was the first author contributor for Anna's feature which began in the 1st Century CE. I chose Queen Cartimandua, one of only two Iron Age tribal women mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in his work about the Roman Empire invasions of Britannia. I'm not posting anything further here since I've already blogged about Cartimandua, but you can find my Cartimandua post for Anna HERE.

Ground Floor Corridor at Haddo House. 
Amelia is featured right at the end. 
Photo: Nancy Jardine with permission from the
National Trust of Scotland, Haddo House

My second appearance on the blog feature was near the end when I contributed a post for the 19th Century CE. For this I chose a Scottish sculptor named Amelia Robertson Hill. It was coincidentally during my research for Amelia Hill that I found her connection to Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen. Ishbel featured Amelia Hill in her corridor of notables in Haddo House. (see previous posts for Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen) 

The post below is a condensed version of what I posted to Anna Belfrage's feature which you can find HERE in full.

Sir David Livingstone missionary explorer
Wikimedia Commons CC 

Who was Amelia Robertson Hill and why did I choose her for a blog post? 

Since my current writing in progress is set in Victorian Scotland, I wanted to feature a noteworthy Victorian Scottish female.  My choices were plentiful, campaigners like Ishbel Aberdeen and Isabella Elder, but I noticed a tiny reference on one site which indicated that there was a female sculptor from Scotland whose work was walked past by some fifteen million people every year in Edinburgh. How could I not find out about who she was?

Emmilia McDermaid Paton (Amelia) was born in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland, on 15^th January 1821, her parents being artists who designed for the damask production in local Fife textile mills. Surviving siblings of Amelia were also artists. Her brother, Joseph Noel, born soon after Amelia in December 1821 gained a knighthood for his artistic work in painting and sculpting (Sir Joseph Paton). Waller Hugh Paton was a landscape artist. Therefore, you could say that artistic expression was in her blood. 

Amelia's younger life isn't easily accessed. She appears to have remained at home in Fife till after her mother's death and her father’s subsequent remarriage. It's not noted what she accomplished during this time, but it's assumed that she at least drew and painted, even if she didn't exhibit them anywhere. It certainly wasn't easy for a female to exhibit in any reputable site e.g. like the Royal Academy of Arts during the 1840s,  but she may have exhibited after she moved to Edinburgh to live with her younger brothers. It's also possible she had formal training with the Edinburgh sculptor William Brodie during this time. (Brodie sculpted the famed statue of the dog Greyfriars Bobby 1872). 

In 1862,  at the age of forty-one, she married David Octavius Hill, an artist friend of her brother who was some twenty years older than her. 

David Hill was a painter and pioneer photographer. He was secretary of The Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture, an institution which denied Amelia access to it -  no females allowed. However, she wasn't denied access to the company of the many upcoming, and some already famous, artists who were friends of David Hill. Amelia’s work became sufficiently recognised for her to be awarded a number of important public commissions, an incredible achievement for a woman in Scotland during the era. 

It’s important to note that an alternative arts society which Amelia helped create in 1877 – The Albert Institute – opened its arms to artists regardless of gender. 

The Disruption by David O Hill

During the early 1860s, Amelia helped David Hill with ‘The Disruption’. This immense painting is unique for the time in that the faces of those included are apparently very lifelike since David Hill used calotype prints (early photographs) and pencil drawings to paint accurate faces,  Amelia likely using similar techniques when making her additions. 

In 1870, Amelia sculpted a stunning bronze bust of David Hill after his death, which was set over his grave in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh (She was buried in the same lair). By then, she was a well-established sculptor and her work was to be found in many Scottish locations e.g. niche figures on the Sir Walter Scott Monument in Edinburgh; the David Livingstone statue you can find right next to the Scott Monument; and a statue of Scottish poet Robert Burns in Dumfries is her design though it was carved in Italy by Cararra sculptors. She sculpted many of the busts of notable worthies around Scotland that are in museums and in private collections.  

Sir Walter Scott Monument
Princes Street
Edinburgh CC

If visiting Edinburgh, wave hello to Amelia Robertson Hill's work as you wander along Princes Street, under the shadow of Edinburgh Castle.

Slainte! 

#Women’s History Month – Isabella Elder

Hello! I'm cutting it fine before the end of March but here's another post about a worthy Victorian woman. 

Who was Isabella Elder and why do I want to write about her?

Isabella Elder
by John Everett-Millais 
CC

As a young child I spent many weekends in Govan, Glasgow, staying with my grampa and nana ( my maiden Aunt Nan) who lived a little bit along the road and around the corner from the Elder Park and the local library. However, at that time I didn’t know of Isabella Elder’s association to the library.

Isabella was a philanthropist, interested in improving the education of local people, women in particular. During Isabella’s life, Govan was not part of the city of Glasgow but a separate township with its own local administration. (It wasn’t till 1912 that Govan became an official area of Glasgow.)

Born in the Gorbals in 1828, which at that time had some prestigious housing, Isabella’s father was a solicitor (Alexander Ure). Though her education is unknown, she must have mingled in the circles of the more elite, wealthy people of the area since she married John Elder in 1857, a partner in the marine engineering firm Randolf Elder & Co. By 1860, the firm acquired a shipyard in Govan which thrived. By 1868, it became John Elder & Co. and was one of the most successful shipyards in the world though, unfortunately, Isabella’s husband John died in 1869 (he was only 43 years old). For the best part of a year, Isabella managed the shipyard herself, a most unusual situation for a woman in 1869. However, she relinquished sole management by 1870 and went into a partnership with her brother, John Ure.

With fewer day-to-day shipyard responsibilities, Isabella was rich and free to choose what she wanted to do (within the limits society set upon her). She had no children to look after and was free to explore the continent. Though closer to home she became a major benefactress in the Glasgow area. She donated a sizeable sum to Glasgow University to the Chair of Engineering and funded an endowment for the John Elder Chair of Naval Architecture.  There were other scholarships set up in John Elder’s name.

Particularly interested in the education of women Isabella went on to buy a large property in the prestigious west end of Glasgow, North Park House, which she then used to set up as a college for women. Queen Margaret College was the first college in Scotland to offer higher education to women. By 1890, Isabella began to fund medical courses for women at Queen  Margaret College though awarding women a degree wasn’t possible till a few years later when the college was amalgamated with Glasgow University, no doubt due to the influence and persistence of Isabella Elder (whose financial contributions weren’t not to be sneezed at).  The medical courses for women were taught by lecturers at Glasgow University, so the women were gaining a similar course of study as was given to male students and the first women graduated as medical practitioners in 1892. By 1898, women were also graduating in the Arts from Queen Margaret College/ Glasgow University. Not content to just organize the setting up of the facilities for women, Isabella ensured that standards continued to be met as per her original agreements with the university – in her book women weren’t to be given any sort of inferior programme of education. It was always to match the academic standards of courses for men and she was prepared to withhold any finances she donated to ensure it happened!

Isabella was awarded an honorary degree (LLD) from Glasgow University in 1901 for her contributions to women’s education in the area.

In the early 1880s, Isabella purchased land near the Elder’s Fairfield shipyard and had a public park built in honour of her husband and his father David.  Wanting to do more for the poorer women of the area, the School for Domestic Economy was established where young women learned how to cook and perform other household tasks on a limited budget. The Elder Free Library, at one end of the park, was funded and stocked by Isabella. During the early 1900s, she funded the building of the Elder Cottage Hospital and a nearby villa which was the Cottage Nurses training home. Those buildings were still in situ when my grampa and Nana took me walking around Govan in the late 1950s.

By 1905, Isabella’s health was failing. She suffered from gout and bronchitis and died of heart failure on the 18^th November 1905. It’s worthy of noting that her official death certificate was signed by Dr. Marion Gilchrist, the first woman to graduate as a doctor from Glasgow University.

Memorial window at Glasgow University CC

There are many tributes to Isabella’s generosity one of which is a memorial window in Bute House, Glasgow University, titled “The Pursuit of Ideal Education”. (She is depicted alongside Janet Anne Galloway and Jessie Campbell other women who should be given some limelight?)

Isabella Elder- Elder Park  CC
by sculptor Archibald Macfarlane Shannon,
a Glasgow University Graduate

In 1906, the current Provost of Govan, unveiled a very fine bronze statue of Isabella Elder in the Elder Park. Much of the £2000 need to fund the statue came from a public collection, many of the local people wanting to give something back to Isabella Elder.

I have childhood memories of seeing the statues in the Elder Park where I paddled in the pond on hot summer days in the late 1950s. My grandfather, I’m sure, knew all about Isabella Elder and probably told me about her though my memories are hazy. Born in 1884, my grampa was a sheet iron worker in that very same Fairfield Shipyard where he spent all his working life. He probably even remembered Isabella’s death since her was born and lived just a couple of short streets away from the park. My grampa, Edward Callan Auld was a feisty union member, a high-ranking shop steward, and continued in his own way to ensure that men working at the Fairfield shipyard in Govan got a good deal.

It's at a time like this that I wish I could remember many more of my grampa’s Govan stories.

Slainte! 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isabella_Elder_biz_Sir_John_Everett_Millais.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Janet_Galloway_Memorial_Window,_Bute_Hall,_University_of_Glasgow.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_of_Isabella_Elder,_Elder_Park,_Govan,_Glasgow.jpg

#Women’s History Month – Part Four Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen

Hello again!

In addition to making the headlines with regard to their fraternizing with the servants in hosting the Annual garden party for them, the Earl and Countess of Aberdeen (Ishbel and Johnny) did other things which set them apart from many of their aristocratic peers. Some of these were continuations, or re-starting,  of what Johnny’s father George had set up – great philanthropic ideas but which had slipped into decline.

Fairly soon after arriving at Haddo House, Ishbel realized a number of things. The general population of their part of Aberdeenshire attended school from roughly aged five to twelve if their parents paid the Dominie’s (schoolmaster) fees, and they were educated to some extent. For many this was a basic standard of reading skills, maybe a bit of counting (so that they could handle their meagre wages), and some could write more than just signing their name on an official document. What Ishbel noticed was that many of the younger estate servants, in particular, desired to learn much more than this and were frustrated by the current situation.

Johnny’s father George had also made the same observations and had in fact set about doing something to change the status quo at Haddo Estate. George had set up ‘evening schools’ during the previous decade, in 1862. The women met once-a-week during the summer and studied scripture; needlework; reading and writing under supervision, mainly undertaken by the wives of the principal farmers. Men paid a penny a week to learn from tutors employed by George. All of this was wonderful progress except it gradually went into decline. The ten minutes of compulsory Bible study didn’t seem to go down well. I imagine that many of those men and women knew they had to spend most of their Sunday on religious observations and therefore wanted every precious moment of their evening class to be on subjects of their choice.

Young women/girls leaving school at the age of approximately twelve were destined to enter into service in a ‘big house’ (not all as grand as Haddo) where they were given further instruction beyond the rudimentary dame school, or parochial school, education that they’d received. In a household with a number of staff, there was a pecking order stepping-up that could be achieved through hard work and exemplary behaviour- e.g. kitchen scullery maid to chamber maid and eventually on to housekeeper. The downside was that it often took years to be promoted. If not in service, many estate-living girls became dairy maids or farm labourers. There were few other choices for a female in the late 1870s. Those girls/ women didn’t generally travel far to gain employment but were expected to send on the bulk of the wages earned to their family, often to help feed younger siblings. Home visits for them were rare, and often depended on the distance travelled. If they could get home and return when on an afternoon off (e.g. on a Sunday) they were the lucky ones. The ‘free to choose’ hours off weren’t plentiful!

For males, it mainly differed in as much as they were not always expected to stay close to home. It was often the case that they returned home very infrequently though the expectations of adding to the family coffers was a responsibility many took very seriously. Males, offspring of estate servants, also had more choices of occupation which meant a possibility of living in the small towns near where they were born.

Ishbel decided to try again with the ‘evening classes’ and in her determined way made a much better job of it.

Haddo House became a place of part-time study again. Ishbel was wise enough to see that setting it up was her function and that, once done, success was more assured when she didn’t intervene in the day-to-day running of it. Many of the men of the estate happily engaged themselves in bettering themselves, often their sessions being undertaken by the butler or senior staff. However, it was much harder to set up classes for the women of the estate. They could only attend if given permission from their ‘mistress’, generally a farmer’s wife who set a nine p.m. curfew which made it difficult for the women to get to classes and back to their place of employment. The curfew was mostly in place to prevent any illicit meetings between young women and men who were all alone and out and about in the countryside. Ishbel put her brain to the task and came up with what is effectively an initial distance-learning situation. If women could not attend her classes then she took the classes to them. The educated ladies of the county, gentlewomen, farmer’s wives etc were encouraged to become tutors who set assignments for their tutor group according to a prescribed syllabus and set books for the particular course. The tutors collected the completed assignments and assessed them giving useful feedback to their ‘students’. It was an ingenious way to extend the possibility of the evening education to more people. The Haddo House Association was born!

After a remarkably short time the success of the system was recognised and the scheme was extended beyond the Haddo environs - thus the ONWARD AND UPWARD Association was created to reach many more potential students.

In 1883, she founded the Aberdeen Ladies' Union which helped woman all across Scotland. She also became head of the Women’s Liberal Federation which advocated for women’s suffrage though she wasn’t quite activist enough to chain herself to railings as some later suffrage activists did.

The Onward and Upwards success led Ishbel to set up many more similar arrangements in the other locations that she and Johnny stayed at.

Ishbel was, from the early 1880s, firmly established as a campaigner for further education and against moral and physical injustice (re: men and women). She was a dedicated political campaigner, an activist for social reform, her devout evangelical nature making her a tireless candidate for this. Johnny’s political leanings effectively matched hers which meant as a couple they achieved success for various good causes, at the huge detriment of Johnny’s legacy and her dowry which was also quite considerable.

As a Liberal Member of the House of Lords (via his hereditary title of the Earl of Aberdeen) Johnny accepted some very prestigious positions. For a time (1881-1885) he was the Lord High Commissioner of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and as such stayed at the Palace of Holyrood House, Edinburgh, an abode which neither he nor Ishbel seemed to like staying in. However, Ishbel’s job was to host dinners at Holyrood for the good and worthy, and probably many who felt exalted but were morally less so.

Dinner at Haddo House by A E Emslie
National Portrait Gallery

When possible, they retired to Haddo during this tenure, where they hosted some very important dinners, the chairs often filled with political activists like themselves. One famous painting highlights Gladstone as the most honoured guest sitting at Ishbel’s side. The painting isn’t of a single moment in time but exemplifies the many dinners she hosted.

By 1886, Johnny was the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. They moved to Dublin where Ishbel found herself ev3n more constrained than in Edinburgh. Her function in supporting Johnny was to host many more official occasions (the etiquette of them often detested) but the idea of security being an issue was horrifying, that she was unable to walk by herself in Dublin didn't sit well. She equated herself to being a prisoner, escorted by a guard. However, she grew to love the country and threw herself into situations where she was able to promote Ireland and its many quality products. The issue of Irish Home Rule was dominant but Ishbel and Johnny overcame challenging situations.

Over the ensuing decades, Ishbel and Johnny continued in the same vein doing many good works in various countries. Not long after their arrival in Canada, Johnny being appointed the Viceroy of Canada, Ishbel was appointed as first President of the International Council of Women, a global institution. Wherever she went for short or long stays, Ishbel seemed to leave her stamp. She was also the first woman to receive an Honorary Degree in Canada, seen here wearing robes of Queen's University, Ontario..

The list of Ishbel's achievements far exceeds what I can cover in a few short posts. It’s quite clear that her general only four-hours-of-sleep per night left her many hours to keep up with what was an immense correspondence. Johnny was no slouch either and I’d love to have been a fly on the wall in their study at Haddo, their desks overflowing with communications.

The Haddo connection with worthy women of Ishbel's time continues. Around 1905, Ishbel took on the task of gaining information about women she regarded as constructive in the lives of women across Scotland. not content to just write a paragraph or tow about them she set about gaining images of her target women. Some were paintings, lithographs, or drawings and others are photographs. She sent her collection along with her explanatory information to a studio in London to have them individually set into matching wooden frames. The frames she then had hung on the ground floor south quadrant, a mainly servant area of Haddo House. On the facing wall, Johnny did much the same adding portraits of influential Members of Parliament and men he also deemed worthy. 

Ground floor Corridor Gallery
Courtesy of The National Trust for Scotland 
Haddo House Estate

This area is not on the regular Haddo House visitor tour but I was granted permission by the National Trust of Scotland's representative, Caitlin Greig, to visit. A couple of hours with Caitlin sped by during which I learned an amazing amount about Haddo and Ishbel and Johnny Aberdeen. My thanks go to Caitlin.

My thanks also go to Moira Minty at Haddo Estate Archives, where I was able to read some of Ishbel's diaries and see the paintings she added to her Honeymoon diary, particularly when they were in Egypt. she was a very busy lady even on that extended honeymoon. 

I look forward to vising the interior of Haddo House again where I'll be looking at the artefacts with a different eye and appreciation of the many exploits of Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen.

Slainte!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_album_of_who%27s_who_at_the_International_Congress_of_Women_-_Countess_of_Aberdeen.jpg

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:THE_RIGHT_HONOURABLE_THE_COUNTESS_OF_ABERDEEN,_LL.D.jpg